


Take This Longing From My Tongue

by Bunn1cula



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Smut, F/M, Imperial Officers (Star Wars), Married Sex, POV First Person, and not waking up the kid, gettin it when you can, kinda sad so here's some sex, the imperial army is a terrible bedfellow, the universe is cruel so here's a little conjugal action interlude between heartbreaks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-21 23:44:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10685343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunn1cula/pseuds/Bunn1cula
Summary: Sometimes Eliana Veers feels like the other woman.If only she could be as happy to see her husband as their two-year-old, blissfully unaware that this visit will be over almost as soon as it starts.It's not easy when the Imperial Army is the third wheel in your marriage.





	Take This Longing From My Tongue

It’s 1830 on Centaxday when he comes through the door with only his cap under one arm. Not even a small bag with him. He's wearing the hangdog expression of an uninvited guest interrupting dinner.

I know what this means.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Zev shrieks at the kitchen table, flinging his rice-filled spoon with delight. The mess is forgivable; he hasn’t seen his daddy in months and months, and I can’t help a small grin through my disappointment. Daddy’s home, just not for long.

“Zevvie!” Max cries, and in an instant the sheepish stranger disappears and he is once again the man of his house. He puts his cap on the table, scoops Zev out of his booster seat and hugs him, spinning in a circle, while Zev screeches with laughter. “Look at you, you’re so big! What’s your mother been feeding you, bantha steaks?” He holds Zev up and blows a raspberry on his tummy and Zev screeches even louder.

He shifts Zev’s bottom into the crook of his arm and comes to me, wearing that guileless smile you’d never expect on a face like his until he does it and then you can’t imagine him looking any other way. It’s the smile I’ve loved since we were seventeen and he was finally brave enough to show it to me. And it’s how I always see him in my mind’s eye when he’s away.

The carbonite army officer’s face is for the rest of galaxy. My Max smiles on me like gentle sunshine after a hard rain.

But when he kisses me and calls me darling and flicks his eyes to the floor, I remember. He’s not staying. Four months away, barely through the door, and he’s already halfway gone again. One foot in, one foot out. I’m upset enough I want to turn my back to him, but I don’t.

It’s not his fault, I tell myself. And it’s not forever. One day we’ll be together, the three of us—maybe four, if the Goddess wills it—like a normal family. He promises, I believe, even when it gets harder and harder to.

But I have to. It’s the only way I can keep going.

“Smells delicious,” he says, bouncing Zev in his arm.

“Are you staying to eat?”

“Of course.” He kisses Zev on the head and deposits him back into his booster seat. He sits at the table, walking right past the spoon on the floor.

Annoyed, I turn off the stovetop and retrieve the spoon from next to his spit-polished boot and dump it in the sink with the other dirty dishes and Zev’s sippy cups.

His shoulders droop and his back rounds, a contrite look on his face. “Sorry, I didn’t see it there.”

“It’s fine.” I get the plates from the cupboard. “Would you like a drink with supper? Some wine, maybe?”

“I…can’t. Water’s fine.”

I want to tell him to get it himself and then I want to kick myself. The pissed-off wife routine isn’t me. I love my husband more than anything in the universe besides our son, but I’m hurt and aching and it’s got to go somewhere.

We small talk through dinner, and I haven’t seen Zev eat this much in weeks. I can’t help but feel a little softer towards Max for this. Our son is moody and a picky eater, but tonight he’s shoveling in everything I put in front of him and chattering away like a charming little HoloNet star. I wonder what it would be like for this to be the norm rather than the exception.

Max puts down his utensils, his gaze boring into me. I force my eyes from Zev’s giggling face to my husband’s temperate one and see that he’s sorry. He loves me and he’s sorry. He doesn’t have to say it; he’s so open-book-faced and his gaze so vulnerable that it makes my gut burn with shame. My hurt is hurting him. I don't know where he's been or what he's had to do since his last time home and all I have for him is a warm meal and a cold shoulder and it makes me sick with myself.

I tear my eyes away and move to clear the dishes but he reaches one long arm across the table and takes my hand. His fingertips are rough and dry, his nails and cuticles ragged.

I notice for the first time how tanned he is when his skin touches mine. I’m as white as winter, for I haven’t worked in the field with the Water Conservancy since we had Zev, but Max is golden—not at all red like he gets the first few days he spends outdoors after being in deep space for months. His sleeve rides up and the hair on his forearm is the color of sun-bleached sand.

He’d been a competitive swimmer when we were teenagers, and I used to sneak looks at his fit, tawny body in the summer while acting like I couldn’t care for him any less. I took playing hard to get to an inane level, but thankfully it didn’t backfire on me.

I still love his body and it’s a turn-on for me when he gets sun-bronzed, but at this moment the stark contrast of his skin next to mine makes me feel distant from him. Separate.

It doesn’t make any sense, I know, but this feeling gnaws at me deep inside, like an opportunistic disease that will only fester and grow the more I think about and feed into it. I have to stop.

I get the dishes into the washer while he takes Zev into the sitting room. Over the din of the HoloNet viewer, I listen as our son happily babbles away and shouts, “Da!” every so often, making my husband laugh. A pang of longing stabs through me as I wish this was the soundtrack every night in our home.

With the kitchen taken care of, I join Max and Zev on the sofa. Max’s belt and boots are off and his tunic open, but he hasn’t relaxed any further than that. I drop beside him into the hollow he’s made for me under his arm while Zev drowses in his lap. His uniform is scratchy against the back of my neck but I don’t ask him to take it off. If I ask him, he may tell me exactly when he has to leave, and right now I just don’t want to know. If I don’t know, I can pretend for a little while longer that he’s staying.

My eyes are following the figures conversing with each other in low tones on the viewer, but I’m not really watching. I don’t think Max is, either. His chin rests on Zev’s silken-haired little head while Zev breathes in the soft rhythm of contented sleep, and every once in a while Max tilts down and kisses him.

We sit like this for a while, quiet and still so Zev doesn’t wake up, and while I want this moment to last forever, I start having the prickling feeling that we’re wasting time. He may have to go at any moment, and I want Max to be with his boy as long as he can, but…I want my husband, too, and not in a way that Zev can stay with us.

I may be sad and disappointed and angry, but none of it is with Max. Not anymore. It never should have been; it’s the goddessdamned job’s fault. Sometimes the army feels like a mistress, one that won’t leave him alone and he can’t let go of, which makes it even easier to hate.

Hating it doesn’t help a damn thing, though. Bitter thoughts just clang around the echo chamber of my head until I just can’t stand it anymore and think about leaving.

But that’s _crazy_ , the idea of leaving Max. I know it. We love each other so much that we’re still _in_ love with each other, and why would I throw away a thing like that?

It’s just hard being lonely. I have Zev all the time, and I concentrate on him, and I’m grateful that between Max’s salary and Denon’s generous maternity grants we can afford for me to stay home while Zev is little, but…I miss my husband.

I miss his warmth beside me in bed. I miss his boots at the door, the smell of his clothes in the closet. The way his laugh booms through the entire flat, so loud it used to startle the tooka, back when we had one.

I miss his touch, his kisses. His stupid whispered jokes in my ear just as I’m falling asleep.

Damn it all…I miss him. But I’m afraid I won’t be able to tell him without falling apart, and the last thing he needs right now are my tears. I know he already feels guilty and I don’t want to subject him to some embarrassing display.

Besides, what good’s saying anything, anyway? It’ll just make him feel worse and he doesn’t deserve that. So I stuff it all down until the tightness across my chest lets up and the lump in my throat settles down.

He and Zev look so peaceful, and stars, so alike. Zev may have gotten my coloring, but the rest is all Max. Same mouth, same eyes, same adventurousness…and same hardheadedness. Their baby holos look exactly alike aside from their hair; Zev will have me to thank for the teasing I know he’ll get for his. (I know because I remember vividly how kids can be. By the time I was twelve I’d heard every ginger joke ever invented.)

Max rubs his thumb in circles on my shoulder and I settle my face against his chest next to Zev. With one ear I listen to Max’s heartbeat and his slow, deep breathing, and with the other, Zev’s quicker, shallower baby breaths.

I’m trying to memorize these sounds and sensations for the coming nights in which I only have the silent darkness for company when Max shifts a little and whispers, “Should I put him to bed?”

I check the chrono on the wall and nod. It’s right at Zev’s bedtime, and it looks like there won’t be any need for a thirty-minute wind-down ritual beforehand. I love reading stories to him before bed, but tonight I’m grateful for having the time with Max. So I hope.

Zev goes down without waking and Max kisses his forehead before I turn on the nightlight and shut everything else off. Following Max out, I close the door as silently as I can, and after listening for a few seconds, we’re confident Zev has stayed asleep.

I turn to go back to the sitting room when Max touches my shoulder. A little startled, I turn back to him and he pulls me into a tight embrace, one arm around my back, and the hand of the other cupping the back of my head.

I hug him back, ignoring the pointy edge of his rank bar pressing into my cheek for as long as I can until the pinch of it becomes too distracting and painful. I pull back and rub the spot; Max sees what his uniform has done and gives me an apologetic look before leaning down and kissing me.

His kiss is soft but deep, tender but hungry, and leaves no doubt to its intent. Relief washes over me as his insecurity about how to act falls away like a poorly stacked pile of stones.

I respond to his kiss with an urgency that I can tell surprises him, and suddenly we’re making out like a couple of overheated teenagers that’ve snuck away from a party. Max’s hands squeeze my flanks, his long fingers reaching all the way to my spine, and I grab and rub my hands all over his PT-firmed ass as if I were lusty Epshor herself incarnate.

I’m hot and damp in my panties and I reach one hand around to the front of Max’s trousers when I remember we’re still standing in front of our sleeping son’s door. I nearly burst out laughing at my own desperation and Max smiles in return, though he looks like he has no idea what’s so funny.

I take his hand and lead him to our bedroom, trying not to giggle out loud. _Please stay sleeping, Zev, please. Just tonight, for mom and dad._ Max closes the door after him and opens his mouth to say something until I strip off my shirt and bra and drop them to the floor. He closes his mouth again when I undo my slacks and push them down to my feet. _Guess that answered your question, darling_.

His eyes go from their usual smooth hazel to a bright green, which only happens when he’s either really angry or really turned on. I’ve only seen the former once or twice, but the latter has conditioned me to respond like Nawataa Falls between my legs and this is no exception. I’m throbbing, wet as a spring flood, as I anticipate him being inside me.

It’s almost comical watching him trying to get his uniform off as fast as he can, which in his hurry has not been as efficient as either of us would prefer. I lie on the bed and take off my panties, laughing while he gets one foot stuck in a trouser leg and nearly falls over.

Then he’s naked, brown and blond all over except for the parts that his shorts had hidden. He’s a little thin, which I don’t like, but very defined, which I do.

I wonder in a moment of unusual jealousy if anyone else has seen him like this and wanted him, or if he saw anyone else like this and wanted them, but I push the useless thought away as quickly as it barged in.

He crawls onto the bed and slides onto me, his tanned skin almost hot to touch against my cool paleness. He kisses my lips, my face, my throat, then works his way down to my breasts and my belly.

He nips at my hipbone while caressing my breasts with one of his big hands, and a worried thought crosses my mind. “Maxie…are you sure you have time for this?”

He looks up at me, nods vigorously, then seals his mouth over my nether lips and flicks his tongue.

I’ve nearly forgotten how this feels. I want to lift off the bed at the sudden near-overload of sensation, but when my back arches and I reflexively squeeze his head between my thighs, he slows his motions and I relax into the soft heat of his gentle lapping.

Goddess be good…I feel like helium, floating out of myself. Pressure builds deep within me and my muscles tighten again, this time out of pleasure. I will myself open to him, to the universe itself, and my body feels as rich and fertile as loam as I imagine my spirit connecting to them both.

My thighs quiver on either side of Max and I run my fingers through his soft, fine hair that feels almost exactly like Zev's.

I could shatter to pieces right now—all over his face, in his mouth…but I want him filling me with himself, with his essence, when I come.

I want him inside me _now._

I give him a gentle tug on his shoulder and he knows what it means so he climbs back up and kisses me, my scent and taste all over his lips, his tongue, his chin. He’s always loved kissing me right after he’s been down on me, and I don’t mind, especially because it turns him on so much. His eyes are heavy-lidded and unfocused, the color of vernal clovers.

I feel him between my legs, hard and hot, and he teases me by rubbing between my labia until my frustration crests and I take him in hand and guide him inside me. He’s big and I’m tight around him at first, but after five years of marriage we’re hand in glove together, no matter how long it’s been since the last time.

He pushes in as far to the hilt as he can be and lets out a low groan. He shivers and the muscles of his back ripple beneath my fingers. “Eli, I’ve missed you,” he whispers against my ear.

“Me too,” I sigh, tilting my hips up as he pulls back and thrusts forward again. Each time he does this all reason falls away from me, leaving me wide open and vulnerable and reckless.

He’s hitting me deep, thrusting at a pace I know he thinks is considerate, and I could probably come like this in a few minutes but I don’t want gentle right now. I want to go harder, faster.

I’m mad at the stars for whatever reason they have to keep us apart, and furious with the Imperial Army. I know Max doesn’t belong to me, I don’t own him, but he’s my husband and my son’s father and I’m feeling covetous and territorial.

I roll us over until he’s on his back and I’m straddling his waist, my knees squeezing him hard. His eyes widen when he sees my feral expression, but he narrows them again and roughly grabs my hips.

I move in a rolling motion over him, onto him, into his lap. Slow at first, so very deep, while he squeezes my ass, cups my breasts. I quickly increase my speed until I’m riding him hard enough the bed creaks and bangs against the wall as if possessed.

Inwardly I cross my fingers that Zev is knocked out after his bigger-than-usual dinner. I don’t want to be stopped by a single damned thing right now, but if anything could take me out of the moment besides Max’s blasted comlink, it would be Zev crying.

The rest of the flat stays quiet but Max is grunting underneath me and he starts shoving my hips in a different rhythm than I want. I slap his hands away and pinch his nipples and he pushes his head back deeper into the pillow, eyes closed, mouth open.

I try to sear this picture of him into my memory: veins bulging on his forehead and his neck, deep hollows carved out between his collarbones and shoulders, making the rounded arcs of his deltoids and biceps even more striking against the hard angles of bone.

I trace a finger over the jagged broken-window lines of the scar just above his left nipple, an indelible memento from one of his many close calls with death. It’s only one of too many scars the army has marred him with, and these are only the superficial ones.

He doesn't tell me, but I know these scars go deeper than skin and muscle. They show themselves sometimes when he’s dreaming. I don't tell him in the morning about the whimpers and grunts he’s made the night before; he already knows what hell he's been in all night.

The army has marked him, like an encroaching rival, and I want to assert my claim. I’ll never back down and let them steal him from me. And if claiming him means marking him myself right now, then so be it.

I abandon my rolling motions and pound myself onto him, driving him into me hard. My ass slaps wetly against his thighs and I grab him, digging my fingernails into his chest and scratching him ruthlessly down to his belly. Eight seething abrasions emerge where I’d dragged my fingers through his skin and baby-blond chest hair, a warning to anyone or anything that may try to take him away from me.

He’s mine. I’m his. Damn the rest.

We’re both close, I can feel it. Sweat has made our bodies slick against one another and Max’s face is terribly flushed, even through the tan.

He pounds up into me, shoving my hips down hard, and I squeeze myself tight around him. The veins of his biceps are ropes as he crushes his fingers into my ass hard enough that I know there will be bruises.

He arches his neck, his throat prominence bobbing up and down, and starts to make little moans. Then his eyes pop open and he lifts his head from the pillow, warning me, “Eli…Eli…”

My womb feels swollen, bounteous and ripe, and a rush of heat shoots through me as I start tingling and contracting around him. “Yes, Max…now…”

He goes rigid and pulsates inside me as a huge, balmy tide rolls over me and tumbles me into a sprawling, dizzying climax. I hiss his name, trying for the love of every goddess there is to keep it down, but inside I want to scream loud enough to subdue Yllnaten herself.

Max isn’t as successful and I slap a hand over his mouth as he cries out loud enough to wake the dead, but thankfully not enough to wake Zev. The hallway stays quiet and no little hands jiggle the bedroom doorknob.

The undulating waves begin receding, though I’m still spasming inside, and I slip off of Max onto the bed beside him. After he catches his breath, he wraps me in his arms and we exchange kisses and murmured affections.

I lie there and imagine that our lovemaking has made me pregnant, and I press a hand to my abdomen as if I could feel conception happening. The chances are low—I know my fertility cycle like the back of my hand—but still the thought of it fills me with peace and profound love for my husband.

We lie in each other’s arms for a short while until I remember again. “Honey, when are you supposed to leave?”

He looks at the chrono on his wrist. “Two hours ago.”

“What!”

“Fuck it.”

“Why haven’t they called you?”

“They may have; I shut off my comlink.”

“Max!”

He laughs. “It’s ok, Eli. I’m the captain—they can’t leave without me.”

“No, they’re probably just about to kick our door down looking for you.”

He smiles and kisses my nose before sitting up. “You’re probably right.”

After he returns from the ‘fresher, I watch from the bed as he starts to get dressed. His hair is wet and slicked back and makes him look like one of those classic Holostars from the Golden Era.

He steps into his breeches and fastens them. “I really hate to shag and run, you know.”

It’s my turn to laugh. “I know you’re only using me for my comforts and my cooking.”

“I’m so sorry, Eli. I know I told you three days, but they changed our orders at the last moment to make it just a quick supply stopover before sending us to—well, another outpost. One far less welcoming than this one.”

“I understand how these things go, honey.”

“It’s a rotten bit of luck and I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.”

“I know.”

He tucks in his undershirt and fastens his tunic, then looks around the room in confusion.

“Your belt is in the sitting room.”

“Oh, right.” He comes back to the bed and kisses me, softly and sweetly. I know this is goodbye. “Please don’t get up. I want to remember you just like this.”

I smile at him through a powerful ache in my chest, and I hold back tears. I will not cry in front of him. “Please, be safe.”

He gives me one of his incongruous earnest grins on that serious face of his and winks. “I will.”

And then he’s gone and everything is quiet and a little more empty, and I’m too tired to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Eliana Veers is an original character of [Eisenschrott's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisenschrott/pseuds/Eisenschrott) that I have utterly hijacked for this story.
> 
> Leonard Cohen inspired the title.


End file.
